Kirkus Reviews QR Code
SEARCHING FOR ANNE FRANK by Susan Goldman Rubin

SEARCHING FOR ANNE FRANK

Letters from Amsterdam to Iowa

by Susan Goldman Rubin

Pub Date: Oct. 1st, 2003
ISBN: 0-8109-4514-2
Publisher: Abrams

In 1939, a schoolgirl in Iowa picked a name from a list of children in Holland to be her pen pal; she chose Anne Frank. A cache of correspondence from the girl whose Diary is one of the most famous books of all time would be big news indeed; in fact, Anne sent only one letter. Dated April 29, 1940, the letter gives some facts about Anne’s school and her postcard collection. Nevertheless, Rubin uses this letter as a vehicle for telling Anne’s story alongside Juanita Wagner’s wartime experiences. There is much speculation about whether Anne was thinking about her pen pal: a quote from Anne’s diary that she stuffed some old letters into her schoolbag to take with her to the Annex raises the question: “Were the ‘old letters’ from her pen-pals in Iowa?” Amazingly, when Juanita wrote to Anne after the war, the letter reached Otto Frank, who responded with a long handwritten letter about Anne’s capture and death. This letter did not survive. Every bit of information about the time Anne spent in the concentration camp before her death, every photograph—and there are some new ones here—fascinates. However, the bland correspondence, if one can call it that, provides a weak premise for another book about Anne Frank. (Nonfiction. 11+)